The Player's Boy is Dead

by Leonard Tourney

  At the end of town, High Street gave way to a narrow country lane lined with hedges of oak and hawthorn. Beyond, the lane merged with the London road, and not three miles more Matthew might see the seven chimneys of the Triple Crown, and, as he felt the first few drops of rain, the inn itself.

  The Triple Crown was situated in a hollow and half-concealed from the road by a few straggling firs. It consisted of a stone building of two stories, a tavern below and lodgings above, and an innyard on the other side of which were a stable and some other small buildings. It was said that before King Henry's time the house had been a priory; if so, few signs of its earlier and more pious occupants remained. Three horses were hitched to the rail outside the inn. Smoke curled from the larger of the chimneys.

  Inside, a bright fire burned on a cavernous hearth. The room was high-ceilinged, filled with benches and small tables, and empty except for two travelers drinking at the far end. They looked up as Matthew entered, then went back to their talk. A girl not more than twelve, he judged, brought him hot ale and cheese. He drank the ale slowly, putting the cheese in his pocket for later. When the girl informed him that her master was in the stable, he finished his ale, wrapped his cloak about him once more, and passed out into the yard, where the rain was now falling steadily.

  He took off his hat and bent low to clear the threshold, calling out the innkeeper's name. Before him the long line of empty stalls ended in a blank wall that in the dim light he could see was hung with hostler's tools. There were no windows, and the acrid smell of human and animal urine made him draw back in disgust. The innkeeper emerged from the shadows of the first stall, stout and unsteady beneath the hulk of broad shoulders and thick bullish neck. Matthew knew the man; they had done some business together, not pleasantly.

  "They played twice in the yard and to no more than a handful of gentlefolk, and them half drunk and not able to tell a codpiece from a cod. But they paid their way here for such lodgings as I gave 'em in the stable and ate no more beef nor bacon than such-like deserved. The boy was one of them, Richard Mull, but I dealt with Master Shipman, their chief. You'll want to talk to him. The boy's death is no concern of mine, save what his murder will do in giving the inn a bad name hereabouts."

  Philip Rowley was but five years proprietor of the inn, during which time it had fallen from its former prosperity and respectability as a public house. His speech betrayed him a northern man, half Scot it was said, a difficult, unlikely man for an innkeeper. In his brusque speech and cold eyes, Matthew sensed the man's mute hostility to authority, his defensiveness, and feared the insolent power of his physical strength.

  "Where is the body now?" Matthew asked.

  "Gaze as you please," the big man snorted, jerking his head over his shoulder toward the darkness in the rear of the stable. "I must look to my own affairs."

  The innkeeper pushed by him and crossed the yard to the main building. Not displeased by being left to his own devices, Matthew Stock proceeded at once to the rear stall to find on the hay-strewn floor a linen sheet the contours of which revealed the shallow outline of a human form. He bent over and pulled the covering back.

  Richard Mull's eyes were shut, the muscles of the face relaxed, and Matthew saw for the first time that the dead player was indeed but a lad, with a fair face and flaxen hair that hung to the white sinewy shoulders. Matthew's eyes fell to the gaping hole where the stomach had been. The blood had dried, both upon the white skin and upon the straw. He crossed himself, replaced the covering, and hurried toward open air. He bumped against someone at the entrance.

  "I have come for the boy," a man said, a big man, not with the intimidating bigness of the innkeeper but narrower in the shoulders and thicker in the middle, with ruddy face and full beard. "I am Will Shipman." Matthew stood back while the chief player bent under the door and without removing the sheet lifted the stiff, lifeless body into his arms.

  "We are but a small company," Will Shipman was saying afterward in the dry ness of the inn, "servants of Lord Crowley. We were the Children of Bristol, though but one among us is—or was—a boy. We played in Bristol and in Exeter and in London, hanging by the skin of our teeth and living poorly, sleeping where we might and playing for anyone who would serve us meat and drink. I can mend shoes, pick pockets, or sing a naughty ballad. I was a scholar once, but acting is what I do best."

  "And the boy?" Matthew interrupted, seeing the man's mind was beginning to wander.

  "He joined us in Bristol. A runaway 'prentice, I suspect, though he never said but that he had an uncle in Lincoln by whom he stood in the way of an inheritance in not too many years. We took him on as costume boy, but about that time our "lady," James Fitzhue, took sick and died, so we gave Richard James's part. The lad had a natural way with words. In a woman's garb you could not tell him from a queen's maid. He did his work with the company, paid his way. His Dido made the play; and that was what, I'm sure of it, got us invited to perform before Sir Henry Saltmarsh at the Hall, although I suspect that's off now."

  "Sir Henry came to see you play at the inn?"

  "No, he had seen us at Bristol in April last, had even given us money for lodgings and other expenses. He asked us who the boy was, said he had seen worse at the Globe and that the lad had a future if he knew how to make the most of it. I did not try to stop Richard, though good boy players are hard to come by these days."

  "Did the boy have enemies?"

  "Enemies?" The ruddy-faced man snorted contemptuously. "Why, a sweeter lad you would not wish, though you had the making of him. There was none among us but loved him like a son or brother. He will be sorely missed, God rest him."

  The man settled deeper into his melancholy, and seeing that there was no help for it, Matthew asked, "Where will you go now?"

  "We were to play tonight at the Hall. If we are still welcome, Samuel Peacham will play Dido. God help us that his voice does not break, for he's nearer thirty than eighteen, though he has but half a beard. . . .

  "There was none among us but loved him like a son or brother," the big player repeated, more to himself than to the clothier. "Whoever did it, he was a devil—or she. Though I doubt that a woman could have done him so, not Richard."

  "Pray God no," Matthew Stock said, straightening his hat. "Did you find the body?"

  "The girl found him. I heard her scream and woke from a sound sleep to find her bending over him weeping."

  Matthew thought of the slender dark-haired girl with the pale face and sorrowful eyes who had brought his ale, and he thought of Richard Mull's poor outraged corpse half buried in the straw, and where it lay now in the cart ready to be drawn to the churchyard. - "Did she know him, I mean before?"

  "No more than did we all," Will Shipman replied after a moment's hesitation. "She waited tables at the inn, and once or twice joined in the singing. I think she was there at one giving of the play, a poor one that, with no more than a drunken furrier and his haughty dame and a pair of spindly-leg scholars down from Cambridge as lookers-on. The innkeeper treats her wretchedly. He tolerates us here as a finch die lark, only to have someone from whom he might snatch more than he deserves. We pay dearly for his filthy straw and bad meat."

  "Why then did you not leave?" Matthew asked.

  " 'Twas as I have said, where might we have gone? Larger and better companies revel in London, such as we must rest content with their leavings. So we are here at the sufferance of Sir Henry and his lady."

  The fire had died and the room was as cold as church on Monday and as empty. Will Shipman called for more drink, and from the back of the tavern the girl came, her face full of grief. Will Shipman called for a fire and ale. She picked up logs and placed them on the grate. Presently the fire revived and was filling the room with its warmth. Then she fetched the drink, and Matthew noticed for the first time that she was comely, with fine features, buxom, and on the verge of womanhood. He started to speak but then thought the better of it. She was young; she had found the body; her vacant stare and pale
lips told him of her mind.

  Matthew looked up to see Sir Henry's secretary enter the tavern. Outside it was still raining, a cold, cheerless drizzle. Varnell greeted the two men and sat down at their table.

  "We meet again, Master Stock," Varnell said; then he addressed the chief player: "Will Shipman, my message is for you."

  Will Shipman, who had hardly seemed to notice the secretary's entrance, looked up grimly. Matthew observed at once that there was little love between the two men.

  "Sir Henry will have the play as was arranged. Tonight at the Hall, die boy's murder notwithstanding."

  "Never fear," Will Shipman replied. "We'll serve his pleasure."

  Varnell looked about the room with obvious distaste, then back at the player. "My mistress dislikes bawdry. See that there is no foul matter in the play. What is it that you perform?"

  "Dido, Queen of Carthage. "

  "An old play, then," the secretary replied with a smirk. "By Kit Marlowe I believe."

  "If you know the play then, you know as well that there's no offense in it."

  "There are many ways to offend, Master Shipman, many," the secretary remarked casually, looking about him again.

  Will Shipman grunted.

  "Well, then, our business is quickly done." Varnell said with evident satisfaction. The player finished his ale at a gulp, saluted Matthew and the secretary brusquely, and strode out into the yard. Varnell looked at Matthew. "I'm glad to see you about your constableship. These players keep close counsel. I would be very much surprised if he that has just left would tell you aught but how to hang yourself in a hurry." The secretary laughed at his own joke. "Have you found out anything?"

  "Something of their lot, and of the boy's. But if you mean have I yet tracked the murderer I am sorry to say no."

  "No clues?"

  "Not a one," Matthew said, shaking his head.

  Varnell rose and asked, "Richard Mull—his body is already buried?"

  "I think the players see to that work now."

  "A pity, the boy's death. He was so young. A miserable morning for a burial too. The grave will fill with water before Richard Mull is in it."

  "He is beyond such worries now," Matthew reflected, finishing his ale and making a move to rise.

  The secretary's eyes narrowed. "I see that you are a philosopher as well as a clothier and constable."

  "Not a philosopher, sir," Matthew replied .firmly, "nought but a clothier by trade and constable by vote of my neighbors, and that but for a year with but three months to run."

  "Let us pray, then," Varnell said, "that it does not take you the remainder of your term to find out Richard Mull's murderer."

  Matthew felt the sting of the rebuke but said nothing. The secretary walked toward the door, though he looked back once as though to add a word. When he was alone, Matthew watched the fire until it began to die again, then he left the payment for his ale upon the table, found hi,s cloak where he had left it near the door, and stepped into the innyard. The rain had stopped, but he knew the road would be a sea of mud. Across the innyard Will Shipman and three other men were hitching a horse to a cart wherein the body of Richard Mull lay. Matthew waited until the chief player mounted the cart and took the reins. The little group nodded to him as they passed, and Matthew removed his hat.

  When they had passed, he pulled his cloak tightly around him, replaced his hat firmly on his head, and made his way back to the high road, careful of his footing in the soft, moist earth.

  The walk homeward was longer and harder than the journey out, and the thought of his commission weighed heavily upon him. When nominated for constable, he had been pleased and honored, happy in the thought that the office might lead to something greater. He saw himself perhaps as alderman, or even mayor. Now he realized the office was no mere sinecure. The boy was dead, brutally and inexplicably so. His violated body would soon rest in the churchyard, his golden voice still, swallowed in that awesome silence that stills at last all voices, while his murderer doubtless somewhere called for meat and drink, picked fleas from his beard, or roasted his feet by a cheery fire. The boy must have justice, Matthew Stock resolved as he trudged through the mud, careful to avoid the holes and ruts filled with faggots and brushwood.

  Three

  THEY were quarreling again, perhaps about the boy. The secretary lingered near the heavy oak door longer than he would normally have deemed politic, trying to make something of the murmur of voices beyond, but he picked up only the tone of the quarrel, not its substance. Twice he heard the word "London," and once, uttered with the violence of an oath, the word "coach." Then footfalls caused him to draw quickly from the door and hurry down the gallery toward his own chamber.

  His lodgings were simply furnished. There was the bed and chest, a small desk on which he placed his writing materials, and the few books he had brought from Cambridge but had not opened since. A window gave out onto a small garden. Upon his desk was a stack of his employer's letters nearly ready for the London post, and a legal document which he now sat down to recopy in a thin but elegant Italian script.

  Since the copying was effortless, it was not long before Varnell was caught up in a reverie of the sort in which he especially enjoyed indulging. He saw himself in London at some great man's house, but not as a mere secretary. He was rather one to whom others paid deference. There were ladies present, of course. One, particularly beautiful, had come to his master for a request. But first she must pass through him, him without whom no one sees, much less speaks to, his lordship. She is pleading, she begins to weep, her hair falls long and golden to her alabaster shoulders and she looks up respectfully, submissively, while he, with his face half turned away and his eyelids nearly closed, brushes lint from a new satin suit.

  The fantasy is revised, and as the secretary begins the second page of the document the scene shifts to a place he knows well. It is a public house, somewhat decayed, its sign that of the Owl. The mistress of the house is a thick-waisted robust woman with frizzled gray hair and a face the two sides of which seem at war with each other. He cannot recall her name; he does not try, for she is stupid and her breath reeks of garlic and her breasts hang heavy beneath a wine-stained smock. Another woman graces his imagination as he copies. She is young, slender as a boy, with full lips and eyes the color of the sea. For her he must pay the fat woman five shillings. He remembers particularly because it is all that he has in his purse, and she allows him to take the girl upstairs only after he has paid her price. The stairway is dark and foul-smelling, the bedchamber cold and filthy with litter. The girl huddles in a corner like a child, her eyes round with fright. He beckons her to come; she hesitates. Finally he grabs her by the wrists, surprised at her strength. They struggle and he places his hand over her nose and mouth until she yields, whimpering like a dog. He is drenched with sweat from the struggle.

  Now, however, he shivered, for the small fire in the grate was not enough to warm the corner where his desk stood. He rose from his place and paced to warm his feet and limbs, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror he used when he shaved himself every third day. His skin was mottled, but discreetly powdered; his teeth were unusually good. He turned up his thick lips to appreciate the effect. The teeth were white and straight; not two lords in three had the like, and he the second son of a cobbler of Cornwall.

  The thought invited another series of recollections. The scene is Cambridge in the chamber he shares with Wilfred, the son of a bareboned knight of Cornwall with an allow-' ance of a pound a week and not the sense of an ass. Wilfred says that divinity is for beggars who prefer the bishops' crumbs to the meat of the lords temporal. Wilfred is making plans to go down to London and the Inns of Court, where he will study the law, the only avenue to preferment, he argues. Let the young simpleton go and spend his father's money on whores and penny ballads and plays. Ah, yes, plays, which Wilfred learns by heart, for he is also of a literary turn of mind.

  The plays make Peter think of Will Shipman, whom h
e detests. The man is always grinning wryly from that monstrous growth of hair upon his chin. No man is such a fool as he who does not know that he is dirt, who cannot be civil to those whom God has made his superiors in worth as well as in station. Yet Sir Henry feasts the players in London while the secretary sits at table's end, his face firmly set in deference to the knight and his lady he serves, while the bumpkin player, full to the brim of his cups, leans across the table on his great hairy elbows as though he were in a common tavern.

  The girl struggled, he remembered. He was wet with sweat, but his strength was greater than hers. When she surrendered, she lay there like an effigy on a tomb.

  It would be winter in two months' time. They would return to London and, as a reward for his service to them both, they would take him with them. He would have a finer chamber than this, its walls to be hung for warmth and perhaps beauty; Sir Henry would entertain as befitted his station; Peter Varnell would occupy a higher seat at table, and who could tell? His service becoming known among those with influence at court, he might live still to tutor a prince, or win distinction in some even greater way.

  He had ripped her ragged smock. She scarcely moved; the devil take her.

  Once in London during the holidays he had heard a famous preacher discourse upon the text: "How long shall the wicked triumph?" Yes, that was it. He had not remained at Cambridge, but he had learned his divinity. Let Will Shipman, as the boy had done, capture her ladyship's roving eye, let him exult in his privileges with Saltmarsh. The corn must grow green before it is cut. Saltmarsh would know who served him best.

  Peter Varnell resumed copying, the little exercise having warmed his feet. At an hour's end his work was done; he held several pages up to the light of the window, both to note possible errors and to admire the perfection of his craft. He replaced the quill in its stand and walked into the gallery, surrounded on all sides by gloomy portraiture of his employer's forebears gazing on in dumb disapproval. At the door of the study he paused, as though to examine a portrait on the opposing wall. He heard nothing within. They had gone, he supposed.